Tonight lots of things came together and it was good.
I took my new oars (and lock!) down to the dinghy at 6:45pm to row out to Kamala. Wind was a F4 easterly and the tide was gushing strongly into the harbour. Nearly gave up when I couldn't stem the tide to get out of the harbour. However nipping along the edge of the harbour wall I just made it out. Was quite choppy with the wind, as the fetch across the bay was pretty significant.
Made it to Kamala and tide the dinghy to the mooring and jumped aboard. Was aprehensive with the wind but the pierhead auto wind on CH18 said it was only gusting to 15kts. I'm sure it under-reads in anything except a southerly.
Because of the number of other boats nearby I set sail under second reef with the motor running in neutral, and had to use it to get going, but quickly turned it off. The tide was so strong there was no way I could head east to Elizabeth castle into the wind so I went out towards Belcroute with the tide and on a close reach. Felt very comfortable. Hardly heeling at all and making and acceptable speed through the water.
The wind died off fairly quickly and after 10 mins I decided to shake out all the reefs in the main and the jib. Despite the massively increased sail area, all we seemed to do was heel a bit more and not go much faster (this was still to windward).
The light was clearly diminishing by now (8pm overcast and drizzly) so I headed home. Sailed a bit faster slighly off the wind. Approached mooring on a run under main only, then close reached up to it. Just about managed to miss the dinghy and catch the mooring.
Was enough light to finish drilling the boom for the 1st reef fittings, so now all reef fittings are completed. I figure I won't make a permanent 3rd reefing system on the boom. I can either lash the 3rd eye to the second reef line or just strap it down.
I rowed back in the twighlight at 9:10pm.
Miles sailed: probably about 1.5
Hours Sailed: about 1
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